2023-09-10 19:18:45
Monday Sep 11, 2023
‘Salvador Allende is still alive in every nook and cranny of Chile. There is no alley in this country where he did not walk, no street corner where his memories remain. Soon someone will show them the chair Allende once sat on. Someone who is proud to have given him a handshake. Salvador, a doctor, was another who drank tea made from leaves plucked from a plant in his yard and his cough cleared up. He met the one who lost to him in a game of chess. When asked if he was an Allende supporter, he replied firmly, ‘still is’. During Pinochet’s dictatorship, housewives kept Allende’s picture under the picture of the Virgin Mary at home. Women think he was the only president who spoke about women’s rights.’ This is from an interview given to Gabriel García Márquez, a writer and journalist who won the Nobel Prize the following year, by Chilean film director Miguel Litín, who made a secret visit to his homeland in 1985. Littin was one of 5,000 people deported by Pinochet’s forces after the 1973 coup with warnings to ‘never return’. Littin stayed in Chile for six weeks under the guise of a trader from Uruguay. The scenes were shot all over the country. Captured memories of ordinary people. Even footage from inside the private office of Pinochet, who was then president, was recorded. These later became films. Why might Allende have become simultaneously the heartthrob of the Chilean people and the unending scorn of the United States? There is only one answer. Allende came to power in 1970 with a concrete plan of action to bring the country, rich in natural resources, but backward in money, on the path of sustainable development. He rose to prominence in Chilean politics as he led mass protests by Communist and Socialist parties against American policies that exploited Latin America’s natural resources. Allende’s electoral struggles are a long story. Almost every parliamentary seat from the Peruvian border to Patagonia was contested. He himself used to joke that if it went like this, he would have to write on his grave that Allende, the future president of Chile, rests here. He became a senator many times. The victory was seen in the fourth race for the presidency. He knew the nook and cranny of the country. There were acquaintances everywhere. There was no other leader who knew the problems, hopes and disappointments of the people as well as him. He nationalized Chile’s copper industry, which was held by American monopolies. He sympathized with labor struggles. Strikes were turned into opportunities. Many giant American firms were nationalized. Ford’s $600,000 facility is owned by the Chilean government. Within a year of the beginning of the Communist regime, the capital of American monopoly companies operating in Chile decreased from 75 million dollars to 5 million dollars. Nixon, who was the President of the United States at that time, came out with a sharp criticism against this. Salvador implemented land reform in Chile. Within a year, 50 lakh acres were allotted to the workers. A 45 percent wage hike was implemented. Chilean courts tried to become Soviet-style people’s courts. The United States feared that Allende would be a more effective leader of the anti-American movement in Latin America than Fidel Castro. Even before he came to power as the country’s first communist president, attempts to overthrow him began. It continued until finally on September 11, 1973, when Pinochet overthrew the army. The military asked Allende to resign and vacate the presidential palace four times. He was not ready. When the attack was confirmed, the sixty-five-year-old waited alone in the palace with a gun in hand, the records say. In the final hours as fascist forces swooped in to take his life, he gave one last address to his people before the army bombed and destroyed the last radio station. He asserted that he would not resign. ‘My loyalty to the people will cost me my life. However, social movements cannot be stopped by violence and coercion. History is ours. People write history. Keep fighting. The traitors will be judged in the court of history. I will be with you forever. Long live Chile, the Chilean people and the Chilean workers. This is my last message for you.’ Salvador Guillermo Allende Gozens was born on June 26, 1908 in the port city of Valparaiso. His grandfather founded the first secular school in the country. This is where Salvador studied, grew up and started fighting. The army finally buried him in the same city. On the night of September 11, 1973, when the coup took place, the body was brought there in an old army plane. Only his wife Hortensia Busi and sister Laura were allowed to accompany him. One of the first batch of soldiers to break into the La Moneda palace later described it to the American journalist Thomas Hoser: The president’s head was split open. Parts of the brain were scattered on the floor and walls. His wife’s request to see him one last time was not accepted. Only the hooded form was shown. There were no official honors at the funeral. Just a bouquet submitted by Hortensia. The military’s attempt was to erase their president from the eyes of society, and thus from the hearts of the people. But even on this fiftieth Martyr’s Day, like a pilgrimage, Chileans flock to the mausoleum in Valparaiso to see their president. Read on deshabhimani.com
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